California Burning

There are some serious wildfires roaring through the Valley out in LA. My friend Yuri sent me this apocalyptic photo of the view from the ocean. The top pic, which looks like a surrealist painting, is from the TIMES roundup of the wildfires. Finally, there's also this video which is a time lapse of the fire set to the music of Grizzly Bear.

Time Lapse Test: Station Fire from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

The LIRR Turns 175 But Doesn't Look A Day Over 160

If you ever want to amaze your friends at a cocktail party, ask them how old the Long Island Railroad is. Most people will date it to the post-War housing boom and you'll get something in the range of 50 years...maybe even less if you ask a young man on Fire Island. Well, the astounding and true answer is that it's 175 years old as of this year. And the reason it's so damn old is pretty interesting.

The LIRR was originally set up not as a commuter railroad but as a freight and passenger route from Brooklyn to Boston, via a ferry at Greenport. Back in 1834, Long Island was just a bunch of farms and fishing communities....the idea of commuting was nearly 100 years off. But Brooklyn was the second largest city in America and there was no bridge/tunnel routes to get from there to Manhattan or Connecticut or anywhere north. So a rail route was devised to cut straight through LI as opposed to going up the Connecticut coast which would have been a longer, more indirect route. And thus the LIRR was born as a train to get to Boston. Who knew, right?

Something other interesting facts; the railroad was founded only 9 years after the concept of a railroad was created, it is the oldest surviving US railroad under its original charter, and it's currently the largest commuter railroad in the country with over 700 miles of track. To read more about it (as they used to say on CBS), check out the LIRR 175th anniversary webpage, which has some fun informational videos too. There is also an exhibit about the way the LIRR shaped the Island currently up at the NYC Transit Museum, one of my favorite non-touristy tourist spots, located in downtown Brooklyn.

Finally, to celebrate their quartoseptcentennial the LIRR are giving away birthday gifts too...you can enter a monthly drawing for Long Island-related freebies, like a free night at the Sag Harbor Inn. So you go LIRR....keep on railing!

On The Rocks With A Twist

There was an article in yesterday's NY TIMES dining section about not cocktails but ice. That's right, ice is the new black when it comes to fancy drinking. The main focus of the article is a Japanese mix-master Kazuo Uyeda (pictured) who has created his own particular style of mixing called the "Hard Shake". It sounds exciting, right...but does it make a better cocktail? The article calls in some scientific experts to meausure the temperature of drinks hard shaken or stirred and the results are surprising. That's science for you!

Earlier in the week, I went out for fancy birthday cocktails at Pegu Club on Houston. They were doing some hard shaking there and the results were intense...as was the price at $13 per drink. I recommend the Old Fashioned, which was as billed. There was a lovely mint julepy thing too that smelled like a fresh cut lawn in Atlanta. Overall, this place was a nice treat and lovely to go on any night other than Friday or Saturday where reseverations are necesssary.

The Male Chastity Belt

OK ladies--do you have a husband whose commitment is not exactly monogamous? Do you want to keep that man in line? Well now you CAN--with the Male Chastity Belt!!! Alright--I know this sounds like I'm doing an SNL-style commercial spoof but this is actually a real product that apparently is selling to women desperate for a solution to their hubby's dalliances. Or maybe they're just getting it for good kinky fun.

The most popular model seems to be the CB-2000, priced from $70 up to $200, for the designer line (pictured above). It's made of plastic so it won't set of airport sensors...perfect for those long business trips! Knowing the male anatomy quite intimately, I'm not quite sure how these things will really stay on. And, if you were determined enough, I'm thinking it would be easy to snip that tiny little lock anyway? But then your wife would find out and if she's spent this much money on a cage for your penis, she is bound to be super-pissed.

My favorite part of their website though was the page with the heading "Why?" Well, they have quite an answer. It's all about how the chastity belt puts "you" (the wife that is) back in control of your relationship now that you literally hold the one and only key to your husband's sexual satisfaction. Here's an choice excerpt: " Kiss him passionately, tease him, deny his sexual pleasure as long as possible. The results of this denial will be extraordinary!" Yeah, the results might also be 1st degree murder.

Below is a YouTube video I found of another crazy-looking chastity device. This one is made of stainless steel and has a diamond in the tip. I'm guessing the diamond is meant to show how much you care. Awwwww....

Rehoboth Beach Slideshow

Last week, I went on a Proustian tour of my childhood vacation spot, Rehoboth Beach. After 30-odd years, the town remains surprisingly unchanged, especially along the Boardwalk area in the heart of town. Here's some pics from my trip down there....enjoy!

$#!@?* Profane Animals

I recently posted about the LOLcats website/phenomenon spawning a new musical, getting it's premiere in NYC this month as part of the Fringe Festival. Well, that website has apparently spawned a newer and somewhat more profane website entitled Fucking Delicious.

Like LOL Cats there are plenty of cute shots of animals doing cute things, though on this site it's always involving eating. However, the captions are filled with expletives and can be hilarious. For example, the photo above is captioned as follows: "Food! … Foooood! … FOOOOOODDDDD!! … Food! … FOOOD! … Come on you fucker let’s get this feeding frenzy fucking started!"

So...if you have fallen out of your chair howling with laughter, you can check it every day for new pics and even submit your own profane animals. If, however, this is all too much for your genteel sensibilities, I would suggest checking out LOLcats partner site...for dogs.

NetPix: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

OK--so even though I'm posting this as a NetPix, I have to be honest and tell you that I actually saw this on the big screen. It was the movie at Bryant Park on Monday night. It was also the first time I'd seen the film in some 20-odd years. I remember being fascinated by CEOTTK when I first saw it as a kid so I was curious to see what I'd think of it now as an adult and also a filmmaker.

In some ways, even though I know what happens in the end, I found CEOTTK even more fascinating this time around for a number of reasons. First off, I didn't know who Francois Truffaut was in the 70's and seeing one of the true geniuses of cinema in a Spielberg movie playing a French scientist is borderline bizarre. Then there's the fact that CEOTTK boasts not just one but two Spielberg moms, Melinda Dillon (who was nominated for an Oscar for her role) and Terri Garr (who is the more traditional of the two, harried and unintentionally funny). The film features some gorgeous cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond (DELIVERANCE, MCCABE & MRS. MILLER), not to mention Laszlo Kovacs who shot some of the pickups.

As if that isn't enough to keep a film geek occupied, the movie also serves as something of a rough draft for two two future Spielberg classics; RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and, of course, ET. The discovery of the WWII planes in the desert and the scene of Indian's chanting the famous alien call play like outtakes from RAIDERS. However, the similarities to ET are more obvious in that CEOTTK shares a similar story but tells it from the adult's perspective. In some ways, this is a much more adult film than ET in terms of its intensity and darkness. The famous abduction scene of Melinda Dillon's child (one of Spielberg's personal favorites) is both beautiful and horrific at the same time, much more scary than I recall the first time around. Also, watching Richard Dreyfuss become increasingly obsessed with his encounter of the second kind to the point that his marriage starts to fall apart is actually painful to watch. His wife and kids eventually move out when he starts building a replica of Devil's Tower in the living room. If there is any flaw in this movie, it's that this sequence goes on a little too long. We sorta get it after the first couple of shrubs go flying through the kitchen window.

What was groundbreaking about this film at the time of its release is that, up to that point, mainstream Hollywood movies about alien visitation usually did not end so well. Spielberg was one of the first to posit that maybe visitors from outer space would not arrive with their guns blazing or harboring some secretive plot to take over the planet and/or destroy mankind. This is a theme which gets an even more thorough working out in ET as the alien actually serves as the romantic lead in a boy-meets-alien, boy-loses-alien love story. And it makes the Spielberg's later super-violent WAR OF THE WORLDS look like an even more mystifying mess.

There are three versions of the CEOTTK available on DVD...from 1977, 1980 and 1997. All of these are part of the "Ultimate Edition" which is on Netflix. I would recommend watching the most recent cut, which is the one screened at Byrant Park. Even Spielberg himself has admitted that the special edition from 1980, with footage inside the mother ship, was a mistake. Finally, an interesting fact to consider when watching this sci-fi classic: Spielberg's inspiration for the film was the song "When You Wish Upon A Star" and he desperately wanted to use it somewhere in the film but was denied by Disney. Strangely enough, the aliens' call, written by John Williams, has a similar tonal progression to that song...not exactly a rip-off but clearly a homage of sorts.

Everything I Know I Learned In Band Camp

That is a summary of my life in 8 words that I was recently asked to create for my new author page on Simon & Schuster's website. I also had to answers tons of crazy/embarrassing questions about everything from my greatest fear to my pet peeve. Actually, my pet peeve was answering questions about myself. (ha) But I have to say, it was prettty fun filling it out, though it did take a while. There were something like 30 questions and I still have a few more to get to. There is also an "author doodle" which I need to work on with something other than my laptop. If you're interested, some other S&S authors have done some nice artsy work w/their drawings...you can check them out on the main author page.

Mad Men Goes A Little Gay

So the season opener of MAD MEN had a little action for married gay Salvatore (played by out actor Bryan Batt). Too bad it was a case of gay-us interupptus. But still...that bellhop! Whoa. Things are really gonna get interesting this season. Stay tuned....

Vandam Puts the "Damn" Back in Nightlife

I am not a big club goer in general but, as a lot of my friends know, I love to dance. For years this has been a problem. There are few gay bars where you can dance and the ones where you can, like Splash, often play terrible music. But now I can happily report that problem has been solved.

Sunday is the new Saturday and Vandam, at the eco-conscious club Greenhouse, is where it's at. This unusual night, started by Suzanne Bartsch of course, has really fixed all that is wrong with nightlife in NYC. First and foremost, they actually play dance music....as in music you can dance to. Really.

Upstairs, in an amazing room that feels like your dancing inside a video game, local DJ legend Johnny Dynell plays current pop and 80's classics, like the Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams", all mashed up into sets that are irresistible. I can't recall going to a dance club where, other than people at the bar, everyone is dancing. Also, the room is also fairly well-lit so you can actually see everyone and there are a lot of everyones to see; from club kids to professional nerds, Abercrombie gays and even some well-behaved straight folk. It's a fun congenial crowd that is actually friendly too and, man, they can really dance. In fact, some of them appear to be dancers on their Sunday night off. They are the ones dancing on the banquets. Downstairs, in a basement that is decorated like a leafy rec room, DJ Will spins some 70's-80's disco realness. But it's not Donna Summer on a loop. Some of the songs I've never even heard of but they still keep you moving. The basement has a gayer crowd, with a band of faithful bear followers from Will's gigs on the circuit.

You'd think the one drawback in all this might be that it's on a Sunday. But I think that is why it's been a success. There aren't tons of tourists or B&T's jamming up the works. Also, the night starts early for NYC; doors open at 10 and it's instantly packed due to a free hour of open bar. And who doesn't like that in the middle of The Great Recession. So you can come early, have some free drinks, shake your ass for a couple hours and be in bed by 12:30. Well...at least I can since the play is just a couple blocks from home. It's my neighborhood dance club...shouldn't every hood have one?